Today, personal computers are ubiquitous. Merely take a look around a café, street corner, in a bus, plane, or train, and one will see many people using their smart phones, or other handheld devices. While often these devices are used to communicate messages, they are also used to play video and/or audio content.
Downloading, decrypting, decoding, and displaying of video and/or audio content tend to use higher than average power and resources and therefore, often drains/consumes the batteries, processing cycles, and bandwidth for the handheld device. This might be of particular concern when the handheld computing devices are disconnected from an external power source or may already be running low on power.
While a desire to conserve the energy of a handheld device may be apparent for devices with limited energy reserves, there is also a desire by many to conserve energy consumption for other computing devices that are not typically mobile. This may arise because of an awareness of a cost of energy, and a desire to “think green” and conserve their energy consumption. Thus, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.